


Fixed

by unnecessarybeltbuckles



Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games), Mortal Kombat - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Time Fuckery, awwwww, mk11 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 14:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18740728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnecessarybeltbuckles/pseuds/unnecessarybeltbuckles
Summary: Sometimes, briefly, the Universe brings them back together.





	Fixed

From nothingness he suddenly awakens. Disjointed space crumples into cohesion, there is physicality, there is awareness, there is incomprehensible pain, then there is a cold, hard floor beneath him. 

He gasps with consciousness. He opens his eyes and jerks up his head before he can recollect, the unease of the jarring transition into existence quickly ebbing. Lights swarm his vision, but it is noiseless.   
As his sight begins to focus he rises to a knee and tries to take in his surroundings. He was standing on polished rock, a floor sweeping into an artistic pattern, but cracked and shattered and jutting out into… nothingness, not far from him. He looks out into it, then above, at the light diverging into millions of stars. 

Unsteadily Raiden gathers himself and rises. The spinning in his head worsens as he attempts to comprehend. He doesn’t know where he is. Where he came from. He can’t remember… anything. 

A stir among the haze alerts him. He blinks at a pale figure in white, turned from him and standing a few steps away.   
Unknowing of what to do, Raiden braves to take a step forward, and it perks and whirs around to face him.  
Raiden’s chest clenches. The recognition hits him out of nowhere. _Shinnok._

“Oh… You’ve found your way back here.”

Shinnok smiles, and it strikes Raiden that the god looks young, unhaggered, perhaps younger than he’d ever seen him. Alarm and confusion prickle at his mind… then it fades away into the rest of the unknown. He can’t remember why he felt afraid, or if he’d ever seen the god in any other way. 

The backwash leaves him only more muddled. Timidly, he continues towards the god who keeps his smile. 

“What is ‘here’?” Raiden asks.

The smile fades. Shinnok sighs and looks upwards. Raiden follows his eyes and sees now that the space around them is shifting— cracking, unfolding, merging, collapsing. 

“Debris of the last world. Some things get left behind, inevitably. Sand slips through the cracks.”  
Shinnok raises a hand toward the sky. The chaos seems that it could be a few inches from his fingertips. 

“And here our souls rest, until space and time recrystalize to begin again.”

Golden light pulses down the god’s skin. Shinnok lowers his hand to Raiden’s shoulder— the touch makes Raiden stiffen, but the energy radiating from it is warm, and sends pangs of familiarity through him.

“You don’t always end up here— with me, I mean. I think it may depend on our closeness in the previous line. The waxing and waning gravity of our fixed points.”

Something is stirring in Raiden’s mind. Shinnok smiles at him again, but thinly, as if he was waiting for something, or holding something in. His eyes are wide and full of pleading. 

“For what it matters, I’m glad that you’re here.”

It hits him. He remembers. One thing, at least. The light and the touch and the eyes… In a rush of breath he reaches and enclasps Shinnok in his arms. The god yields against his chest and clings to him in kind, fingers curling into his hair.   
“Shinnok…”

He cannot remember exacts, only ungraspable blurs of memories and ghosts of sensations. But he can remember and can _feel _now, burning heavy in his heart, the love. Transcending space and time in ways that he can’t quite understand, but he knows. The embrace feels like a relief, a finality as they hold each other in this nowhere, nowhen place. They could stay like this for eternity.__

__But too many uncertainties gnaw at his mind. Raiden gently withdrawals enough to face the god, framing his jaw in his reverent hands._ _

__“I don’t understand… Has the world ended? Is this…”_ _

__Shinnok’s reluctance to break the moment is clear. Evident happiness fading, he sighs and trails his hands over Raiden’s.  
“Things did not go her way. Again.”_ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

__“My mother— Kronika, has been incessantly resetting the Universe’s timeline. Dozens, and dozens of times over. Perhaps thousands, millions. I don’t know.”_ _

__Raiden looks up at the reforming sky around them in awe. And fear._ _

__“Why?”_ _

__“Because I never follow the destiny she has planned for me. Because of you.”_ _

__Raiden startles at the statement. Although there is no anger or resentment in Shinnok’s sombering eyes, it troubles him deeply._ _

__“I-I’m sorry—”_ _

__Despite everything, Shinnok huffs a laugh.  
“No, Raiden, it’s not like that. She is trying to _force_ me into a destiny. One that is not mine. One that I do not want. You’ve always been the barrier to my total desecration— a paper-thin one, at times, but all that matters.”_ _

__Shinnok lowers their hands and looks wistfully into the stars._ _

__“She’s tried so many times to ruin us. Sometimes it’s worked. We have hated each other. We have fought wars. We have killed each other. But even still, always, there was love. She in all her power cannot change that.”_ _

__Shinnok smiles._ _

__“And it makes her _furious_ beyond relief.”_ _

__Before Raiden can wet his tongue, there is a horrendous crack, a vibration that jars him to the bone. The grip on his hands tightens to pain before all sensation is lost to the roar. Pure light becomes everything before flashing into nothingness. Before it reclaims him, he only hears,_ _

__“Till we meet again, Raiden.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> I finished the MK11 storymode and this was the first thing I could think of


End file.
